Jane’s Addiction: A Cabinet of Curiosities

Gorgeously packaged and well-named,
this box is packed with collectibles for the diehard but few gems for
the uninitiated.

With their reunion tour in full swing,
a proper celebration of Jane’s Addiction is due. Seething
courageously in the murky brackish where goth, metal, funk, punk and
prog flowed into the mainstream via the ’90s’ “alternative”
revolution, Jane’s Addiction were visionary shamans whose initial
run was ultimately undone by their own freakish unpredictability.
While the band’s reach can never fully be calculated, the dual
fires of Nothing’s Shocking and Ritual de lo Habitual
clearly still smolder in the hills of modern music’s collective
psyche.

At moments, A Cabinet of Curiosities
captures this primal essence. The lurid voodoo-shop packaging, tarot
cards and deft use of the band’s graphic motifs is a great house
for the collection, while the scattershot of rare covers ranging from
“Bobhaus” (the lyrics to Dylan’s “Like A Rolling Stone”
sung over Bauhaus’ “Burning from the Inside”) to Grateful Dead
and Iggy Pop songs outlines the crazed sprawl of Jane’s’
addictions. Still, Perry Farrell and Co.’s definitive statements
were their official albums, and having already dredged through the
outtakes with Kettle Whistle, much of what’s left here
really is more a collection of curiosities than an end in itself.

Composed primarily of unreleased demos,
the set’s first two discs tend to feature rattier versions of the
songs on Nothing’s Shocking and Ritual. The most
interesting of these are early Radio Tokyo sessions which most
notably include a sparse but chilling version of “Jane Says” that
grinds the knowing fatalism of its lyrics into stark relief.
Unfortunately, it may be one of the only early outtakes that bears
repeated listening. Throwaway cuts like “Maceo” and a
surprisingly finesse-free version of Sly Stone’s “Don’t Call Me
Nigger Whitey” with Ice-T are aural scribblings best sampled, noted
and put back in the drawer. On most of these demos, Farrell’s voice
is a sandpaper whine and lacks much of its later howling elasticity,
and the band’s roar seems muted. But even in this ragged form, the
songs remain stunning. “Three Days” might well be Alternative
Nation’s “A Love Supreme,” and to add irony to brilliance, the
band snuck it across the goal-line on the back of a catchy song about
shoplifting.

This brand of subversive charm is
partially showcased by the inclusion of a live Hollywood Palladium
show from 1990, where Perry Farrell claims to be tripping on acid,
chides a Birkenstock-throwing audience member about his fashion sense
and generally comes across as a friendly kind of dangerous. While the
set list is a stone-cold killer, the performance is more workmanlike
than revelatory. A more intuitively edited dose of the band’s live
energy surfaces on Cabinet’s DVD which includes, among other
things, the “Mountain Song” video, which was banned by MTV
(presumably for passing nudity), and three tracks from an MTV Italy
performance. Clocking in at just under an hour (and slightly sullied
by extra goofy video footage including, inexplicably, Dave Navarro
beating the tar out of his pet eel), the DVD fits the set’s overall
vibe. For diehard fans, the material collected here offers a few new
looks at the band and operates as a sort of anthropological backdrop
for its weightier classic albums. For anyone more casual, it’s a
lovely looking overdose of an essential band’s inessentials.

Listen to Jane's Addiction's "Three Days" from A Cabinet of Curiosities: